Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road
by RobinRocks
Summary: USUK. "And yet," Arthur replies, "I was bewitched for so long." Arthur loses his virginity to Alfred and giving up the ability to see his fairies and unicorns was the price he had to pay for choosing a different kind of love.


I've been doing a lot of fantasy/fairytale type reading recently for my upcoming 'Fantasy and Fandom' exam in English (yes, it was an awesome class, thank you for asking) and it made me come back to this little plot bunny which I actually had quite a while ago now but sort of discarded. My recent "research" brought the inspiration back and, in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't write it when I originally got the idea.

The idea of Arthur not being able to see his unicorns and fairies after he gets deflowered has actually been done in the fandom before quite a few times (or at least alluded to) but always for lulz. Incidentally, I agree – it _is_ potentially hilarious—

But it's also potentially _not_. Considering that Arthur sees them as his friends and Alfred doesn't believe they're real at all, I thought that it was something that actually might cause quite a rift between them.

What it comes down to is that I wanted to write something a little bit beautiful, a little bit sad and a little bit unsettling.

Whilst this is NOT in any way a songfic, the title comes from the beautiful Elton John song of the same name (which, incidentally, is a song I have always equated with Son Goku from _Dragonball Z_ for some reason, idek whyyyyyy... T.T).

Set in the early 1930s and slightly out-of-sequence. =)

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

"Sorry," Alfred whispers suddenly. He seems to think that his gift has fallen horribly flat. "I know it's not… I mean, it's stupid, really, I just… I thought—"

"Hush now." Arthur puts his fingers to Alfred's moving lips to quieten him. "It's alright."

He draws them away again and any and all of Alfred's unspoken words come with them, silver and strung-out like a spiderweb, suspended between hand and mouth to keep that silence still. He sighs then and looks away; aside, up, anywhere, anywhere. The sky is all stained-glass silks, full moods of red and precious blushes of pink and ripe swells of orange just-so at the horizon; higher still it stains purple and then bruises deep blue, the first of the stars glittering like beauty spots at its utmost arches. The riverbank grass darkens and every blade is edged with gold, the view opening out before them like a rich illustration in some old and beautiful children's book, washed and jealous colours which keep that beauty for themselves.

Brightly-lit and blazing, the _Delta Queen_ goes past on quiet waters like a swan.

"It's lovely," Arthur says over the sigh of the Mississippi; they sit next to each other on the bank and he nudges closer yet to Alfred and lays his head on his shoulder.

"Really?" Alfred hesitates, then dares to put his hand on top of Arthur's, fingers curling under his palm. "You're not just saying that so I don't feel bad?"

"As if I'd go to the trouble."

"Dunno. Thought you might on this occasion."

"You were mistaken."

"Guess so."

Arthur glances at him briefly.

"Oh," he murmurs, "do I truly seem so depressed?"

"Huh." Alfred doesn't return his gaze, his eyes fixed on the paddle-steamer; she's still fairly new and the toast of the river. "You looked like you needed cheering up. This was the best I could do." He pauses again. "Well, not the _best_ – but the best, if you get what I mean. For you."

"Yes, I suppose I quite see why this might have... well. Yes. I do see. I do understand."

"Good." Alfred sighs himself as two tiny lanterns – little glowing fireflies – drift overhead in lazy orbit of one another. "I'm tired of feeling guilty. I should feel proud, right? I'm like the knight or the prince in one of those old stories of yours – I rescued you from the fairy realm and won your heart. You're supposed to live happily ever after with me now, right? And forget all about the story which came before."

"Yes, I..." Arthur bites at his bottom lip. "Well, still, it's a shame that the world doesn't fall into line quite so easily – the _old_ lines are never quite worn away by time or by forgiveness."

"Oh, you and Francis, fretting over Ludwig _again_," Alfred says impatiently. "Can't you let it sleep for a hundred years?"

"Ah, brave and noble hero," Arthur muses, "it would appear that there are spells which even _you_ cannot break."

"Hmm." Alfred squeezes his hand and nods at the fireflies beginning to brightly flare amongst the grass, flickering on and off like struck matches; every now and then, one lifts and languidly trails like a low and dying star over their heads as the sky darkens ever more, its lacy petticoat-edges descending.

"What do you think of our lightning bugs?" Alfred drawls gently. "Light up the night sky better than those fairies of yours, huh?"

Arthur looks at him wryly.

"You didn't bring me out here to see the boat, did you?" he notes. "You brought me out to see these insects."

Alfred pouts.

"Well, they're the best I have," he says moodily. "You ain't yourself lately. I know you don't want drinks and parties and—"

"It's enough." Arthur leans back, watching the fireflies dancing above them, from here looking like everlasting fireworks over the _Delta Queen_. "Thank you, Alfred. This was very kind of you. It's good of you to give an old man his whimsies."

Alfred snorts.

"You're just being all weird and ironic," he says. "It's not the same at all, is it?"

"No," Arthur admits, "but it's nice nonetheless." He lies back on the grass and stretches his arm upwards, fingers extended but always, always just beyond those brightly-flaming little fancies, never quite able to grasp them though they skip past his fingertips. "...This is the kind of night that will bring them out."

A little impatient, Alfred leans over him, holding his gaze. Arthur smiles up at him.

"You want to ask how long this will take, don't you?" he says softly; his open hand comes gently to Alfred's cheek, pressing to it, and Alfred takes his wrist and holds it there. "How long I'll be a fool and moon after what I've long since lost."

"You haven't lost anything, Arthur," Alfred says pleadingly; he closes his eyes and the fireflies burn against his hair.

"And yet," Arthur replies, "I was bewitched for so long."

* * *

"You're being rude," Alfred says impatiently, standing at the door.

Of course, he's all dressed up to the nines in that fancy, fashionable suit of his. Nice party he has going on in the other room; in _all_ of the other rooms, glittering guests drifting to and fro on polished marble floors with pretty and potent drinks. It's all so bright, the washes of alcohol and their fancy decorations, even the glacé cherries and sallow olives gleaming like old jewels in older, forgotten seas—

And the guests, too, faceless higher-ups, important politicians, dirty and ancient money in their veins; they in their finery with their wives on their arms. Oh! and what wives, too, primped and porcelain, bleached and rubbed raw until they gleam under the crystal chandeliers, their gowns all shades of exotic corals, gathered and clinging and shining. Throats and ears and hands and wrists and even hairdos glimmer with all the treasures of this world, banal things like minerals and ores which for millions of years no-one cared a lick for – but have value now for how they shine. How many millions of American dollars alone in gold and pearls and diamonds trot about this little penthouse bash?

Does it even matter? The crowd will disperse come morning, perhaps earlier still, and this will be nothing but another little echo in history. New Year's Eve, 1934. On New Year's Eve, 1935, no-one will care about what happened here tonight. One day all these beautiful and important people won't matter, just like all the beautiful and important people that existed in lifetimes before.

Not moving from the window, Arthur says as much, his eyes on New York City, lit and glowing far beneath them. It used to be wilderness; then a Dutch colony; then a British one. Oh, and then a captured town in a war between them; and at length handed over. He had no control over it after that – far less, at least, than these people now who claim to run it.

"Are you drunk?" Alfred asks shortly, coming into the library and shutting the door with his weight. "You always get all mopey and melancholy when you've had too much to drink."

"I'm perfectly sober, actually." Arthur glances at Alfred – who is beginning to look rather dishevelled, no doubt due to running around after all of his guests. Being social. Mingling. Kissing arse. Whatever. "Forgive me, I just... I have a headache."

"You've been like this for weeks," Alfred says shortly, loosening his bowtie as he crosses the room. The gramophone drifts valiantly under the door, scratchy and earthen between the book-lined walls of the tiny room. "Reflecting on your long and wicked life amongst books whose words reflect your sins?"

"Even if I was, there's nothing to do about that now," Arthur sighs. "What's lost is lost. What's done is done—"

"And what isn't done _remains_ to be done." Alfred sounds impatient all of a sudden. He puts his hand on Arthur's shoulder as he comes level with him and Arthur jumps, turning to him with a start. "New Year's Resolution? You could put me outta my damn misery."

Arthur looks away rather determinedly.

"Oh, love, you've been ever so patient," he says unhappily, "but you're only saying that because _you're_ drunk."

Alfred takes back his hand.

"I'm not gonna force you," he says coolly. "You know that."

"Yes, I do know that."

"But..." Alfred tips his head back for a long moment. "...It's been... well, I don't mind waiting until you're ready, you know, but sometimes I feel like I'm waiting for nothing. That you've got absolutely no intention—"

"If that _was_ the case," Arthur interrupts languidly, turning towards the window again, "would you leave me?"

"No, no, of course not," Alfred groans, half-frustrated, "but you're being unfair, you know, if you're just stringing me along in that respect."

"But what then, Alfred? Fuck-friends in my place? Prostitutes? Or would you just run to Francis or... well, anyone who will put out—"

"I'm not having this conversation with you." Alfred takes his chin and kisses him a little forcefully for a long moment. "I'm not," he breathes as he breaks away. "Shut up, okay? Come back to the party. I'm not gonna tolerate you sulking in here any longer." He takes Arthur's hand and tugs. "Come on. It's almost midnight. Come _on_."

So Arthur goes with him and hangs limply on his arm for the rest of the night. Alfred is animated amongst his colleagues, his people, witty and charming and clever, and Arthur is lucky to be with him. Of course, nations don't consort with humans, it's forbidden, but nonetheless Arthur gets some jealous looks from those ghastly painted socialites, shooting their poison at him from beneath their fake and fluttering lashes. Common and contemptuous envy; it irritates him.

"It won't be here," he says later to Alfred; after the countdown and the cheering and the toasting, when the swell is lulling and they're curled up together on the plush red couch.

"Hmm?" Alfred rests his chin on top of Arthur's head. "New York? Or anywhere-USA?"

"I'd rather be at home." Arthur exhales through his nose. "So I can say goodbye."

"Arthur—"

"Oh, don't tell me I'm mad, that I'm stupid. It may be the case, I know; and good god, I know you're frustrated. You've been so, _so_ patient me with, Alfred, and I can't tell you how grateful I am—"

"If you didn't _want_ a relationship, you should have said at the start. What were you expecting, that we'd do nothing but go apple-picking together?" Alfred huffs and plays with Arthur's hand. "I can't believe _I'm_ the one who has to say this to _you_. You're older than me, for heaven's sake, you half-raised me—"

"I do understand these things, you know," Arthur says irritably. "And besides that, my neighbour is _Francis_."

"So that's your decision." Alfred takes off his glasses and cleans them on his suit jacket. "Can't be here. Has to be in Jolly Old. Right, I'll hold you to that. I'll take you to London and wine you and dine you, book us into the best hotel that rotting old capital city of yours has to offer, and then I'll fuck you. I'll fuck you absolutely blind. I'll fuck you until you can't even _think_ about walking without your legs to turning to jelly. I'll fuck you in every position I can think of and then I'll make some up, too, totally crazy ones; and we'll wreck the whole goddamn room and have to pay through the nose for damages—"

"Stop!" Arthur squirms in his grasp and pushes at his chest, laughing. "You'll do nothing of the sort!"

"And when we're done totalling the place with our epic lovemaking, we'll order fuckin' _room service_—"

"Oh, now you're being positively _indecent_, Mr Jones."

"Well, that's how it's gonna go down," Alfred says, putting his glasses back on, "so get used to the mental image."

A drunk politician stumbles and drops his glass; it shatters on the marble with a high and explosive sound and the man simply totters over the shards, crushing them further still underfoot, to fetch himself another. In a corner, clutching at an expensive statue of a Bengal tiger to hold herself up, a young woman in a champagne-coloured dress is being successfully propositioned by a sleazy-looking man with a cigar. The gramophone has long since stopped playing, grinding over and over at the heart, and the air is thick with stale cigarette smoke.

All of the colour, all the glimmer and glamour, is draining out of the room, leaving behind a sorry old shell, a grainy newspaper-print of the past. Arthur sighs at it, resting his head on Alfred's shoulder. He wishes he was drunk. Being so disillusioned is a frightful bore when one is sober, he thinks. At least when you're drunk, you can blame your ill-feeling with the world on the alcohol.

"Magical town, ain't it?" Alfred drawls. He looks rather bored himself; or tired, at least. "Never sleeps, or so they say. You could live forever here, I guess – this old fountain of youth they call New York."

"I'm so sick of everything, Alfred," Arthur sighs, closing his eyes. "Myself especially." He nuzzles closer to Alfred. "I want to wake up."

* * *

When he was very young, all the land was like this.

Everywhere the grass lay thick and lush, the green of emeralds or absinthe or dollar bills; and all the sky was clear except for clouds, young and cornflower-blue. The woods were wild and untamed, spreading like disease and their symphony the crack of old boughs in the wind; the trees towered tall with thick roots that bent like bows out of the ground, all carefully dressed in the old and precious jewellery of ivy and moss. Rabbits twitched in the undergrowth and foxes barked and owls were all the wiser—

And stranger things dwelt, too, within the edges of wild old Engelonde.

"I thought nothing of it then," Arthur says gently, looking to Alfred. "I know it's hard for you to understand but that's how it was. There was magic seething under every stone. It's potent still in the old tales – the magic itself and its normalcy. It sounds like nonsense now, I know, but fairies and unicorns and all those other things besides, elves and dwarves and dragons—"

"I'd rather devote my time to more practical things," Alfred says flatly. "Scientific things."

But that might just be guilt, too. Alfred believed in magic once (and feared it enough to hunt for witches). Even his _name_... 'Alf' alone comes from 'elf'. Alfred. Elf-counsel. One who seeks the counsel of elves.

"Yes," Arthur says, "someone with industrialism in your blood, all the same..."

"This sounds like an excuse." Alfred pops his shoulders. "Let's just be blunt about it, yeah? It's fine, I'm not gonna be offended. As you said, what's done is done. I'm not a virgin so I can't see 'em and that's not something I can take back. Couldn't even if I wanted to."

Arthur shoots him a wry look.

"_Would_ you want to?"

Alfred shrugs.

"It was Francis. Whatever. I knew _you_ didn't want me." He pauses. "Looks like you _still_ don't want me."

"Alfred, it's not... not the same for me. These are my friends—"

"Whatever." Alfred turns on his heel, losing his patience. "I'm going inside." He pauses a moment. "You don't have to look so hard-done-by all the time, you know. I'm not gonna force myself on you. You _know_ that."

The back door bangs behind him and Arthur sits by himself out in the garden in the twilight – alone and not-alone, with all those wild and wonderful visions about him. In the gloaming, the unicorns are like the moon and the fairies flit between the trees, as bright as stars. They were there the entire time but Alfred saw nothing before him but Arthur.

He can't blame Alfred. He's been patient and it's really no wonder that he's frustrated given that Arthur suspects it's not just that Alfred can't see them, it's simply that he just doesn't believe they're real, virgin or not. He grows hostile out of frustration, then, true, but also out of resentment; that's he's being passed over for a mere conjuring of Arthur's imagination. He grows defensive, too, when it comes back to why Arthur can see them and he can't, as though he feels that Arthur is attempting to make him feel guilty for not staying chaste and pure and innocent or whatever else.

It's ironic. Alfred is a great deal more innocent than Arthur in a lot of ways. He's still naïve, wide-eyed about the world, and has an energy in him that Arthur's old bones can't keep up with. Still, his eyes darken when he imagines that Arthur runs his fingers through his unicorn's pearly mane and looks down at him, regarding him with contempt for being a slut, for not keeping his legs closed—

["That's not the case at all," Arthur has said in the past. "This isn't about you, Alfred, and whatever you have or haven't done. This is about me—"

"Yes, I know; and it's _always_ about you, isn't it?" Alfred snaps. "It isn't fair, Arthur."

"If all you want is sex, piss off to Francis, then – or whoever else will have you."

"You talk as though it hasn't been almost two decades! I don't pester you, I don't try and force you... but I'm _sick_ of playing second fiddle to your damn imaginary friends! They have you and all I get is you staring vacantly through me when I'm talking to you. It isn't fair. _I_ want you. Is that too much to ask?"]

When he was very young, these were his only friends; tiny fairies that danced around him like baubles of light, pearl-white unicorns that let him curl up against them as the darkness folded in, little dragons that he found under rocks and which slithered through his fingers when he tried to pick them up. The land – _his_ land – was alive with magic and thus he had grown up bewitched.

Alfred, then, is like the knight or prince or hero in so many of those old tales.

He wants to break the spell without knowing what it is.

* * *

"Souvenir." Alfred presses the jar into Arthur's hands somewhat forcefully and flops down next to him on the riverbank. "Sorry, I could only catch three. They're pretty fast."

Arthur holds the jam-jar with both hands and watches the fireflies bouncing about the glass walls for a moment, captured stars in a sudden downsized galaxy.

"This seems cruel," he says. "You couldn't do this to fairies, you know. They'd curse you to Hell and back."

"I expect they would." Alfred lies back and throws his arm over his eyes. "Let them out, then." He frowns. "The lightning bugs, I mean, not—"

"Yes, I understand." Arthur puts the jar down between them; the cool glass nudges Alfred's elbow and he takes away his arm just enough to look up at Arthur and catch his smile. "We'll let them go in a moment. It doesn't seem fair to keep them."

"Mm." Alfred closes his eyes. "They don't live very long, you know. They'll fade out before the night is through."

* * *

His gaze goes where nothing but his fancies can follow and Alfred feels – desperately, despairingly – that even if he were to peel Arthur's eyes out of his very skull and wear them as his own, he still wouldn't see what Arthur was looking at—

Or looking for.

"I've held onto it fiercely, you know – for centuries," Arthur says gently. "Sometimes I was tempted but I was always too aware of what was at stake. What I would lose."

"Uh huh." Alfred turns the page of his book, not looking up. "You should come away from the window, you know."

Arthur simply tuts and hunches further still over his embroidery, his needle flashing in the yellow light. He sits on the windowseat with all the wild and bright flowers of the garden pressing against the glass as though searching for a crack to creep through and henceforth bloom inside, alien and out-of-control around the legs of the coffee-table and up the backs of the armchairs. His threads are just as bright, jewel-colours strung out between the needle and the old-bone-fade of the canvas stretched over the hoop.

Every now and then his attention wanders from his stitching and he looks out of the window for a very long time. This isn't new behaviour. He was always like this, Alfred remembers, but it never used to bother him, the way Arthur would suddenly stop talking and crowd at the window. It was just something, a little idiosyncrasy, that he accepted, even giggled at, tugging at the back of Arthur's tunic to bring him back again. Now, however, it troubles him immensely.

There's a line somewhere, some silvery twilight edge on which imagination embroiders its colours just as boldly as Arthur does in these idle moments; and as though the line cleaves right through him, Arthur is never wholly on one side nor the other. Just as Alfred reaches out for him, he's gone again to where he can't be reached, and all the war and the bloodshed and the ruthless practicality of the pirate and the soldier and the empire within him (which Alfred has seen) is unable to seep through that strange and twisted divide after him.

[Once, Alfred asked him, half-mocking, how he could have the balls to touch unicorns and play with fairies, these things which so proclaimed his innocence, with his hands all covered in blood—

To which Arthur held out his hands and asked exactly what blood he meant.]

"_Arthur_." Sharper, much sharper than before. Alfred pushes up his glasses and lets _The Great Gatsby_ fall flush upon his chest; Arthur's hand is slack against his work, needle swinging at the end of a vine of green thread. "Come _away_ from the window."

When he was small, Alfred used to climb onto Arthur's lap and look too, wondering what he was gazing at.

He never saw anything, even back then.

—

"Do you really want me, Alfred?"

It comes out of nowhere; or, rather, it comes at his back where they lie together in bed in the dark, Alfred turned away from Arthur. He doesn't even try to cuddle him anymore (because sometimes Arthur cuddles back and sometimes he goes all rigid and unbending and cold).

Alfred sighs and doesn't open his eyes.

"Can't you go consult your Knights of the Round Table about that, huh?" he asks irritably.

"Or am I just something unfulfilled for you to make your own?" Arthur goes on quietly, utterly ignoring him.

"Fuck off," Alfred hisses, losing his patience altogether. "It's all very well to say things like that, isn't it, except when it's coming out _your_ mouth. You're a total joke, the way you act all waify and dreamy and wind yourself around me like butter wouldn't fucking melt when you've gleefully stamped more people into the ground than I can count. This act wouldn't work with Antonio, it wouldn't work with Yao – so don't think it's going to work with _me_."

Arthur snorts.

"It's just a question," he says coolly. "A perfectly legitimate one."

"Don't. I hate it when you're like this. You're gonna turn me into the bad guy and I'm gonna let you without even realising it. You're very good at that."

"Clever words, you see," Arthur agrees. "Spells."

"Shut _up_, Arthur. Go to sleep."

Arthur sighs and Alfred feels him shuffling around behind him.

"I just want to understand," Arthur says a moment later, quieter, closer to Alfred's ear. "I want to know – because it's not as simple as just pushing people away anymore. But you've been patient with me and it... it _isn't_ fair of me, I know—"

"What _I_ don't understand," Alfred interrupts in a low voice, "is why you... god, _why_ you said yes all those years ago if this wasn't what you wanted! It's fine if you wanted time, if you didn't want to rush into anything, I completely understand, but if all you've been doing is _pretending_ to love me—"

"I _haven't_," Arthur insists. "I haven't been pretending, Alfred."

"Then _why_ do you keep pushing me away?" Alfred asks frustratedly; but then he bites his lip because he knows why. He knows exactly why.

"I don't want to push you away," Arthur breathes.

"But you _do_," Alfred bites out.

"But I don't _want_ to."

"Then don't." Alfred turns over and finds Arthur facing him, so close that he can feel his breath; the edges of the moonlight on him make his gold hair silver instead.

"I'm afraid," Arthur sighs.

"Arthur, I would never hurt you." Alfred touches his cheek and feels Arthur shake his head.

"Not of that," he insists. "Not of pain. It's... it's that it's the shape of my world. It's all I've ever known. No matter how far I sailed from home, no matter how bloody the war, no matter the disaster or disease or monarch, I always had that comforting old reassurance to come back to, that those only friends of mine would exist at the fringes of my brutal and expanded world vision. They're the remnants of what I was, old Medieval memories in secret forms that only I can see. I know it's selfish but... it's a difficult thing to ask me to give up." He feels for Alfred's hand under the sheets and clutches it. "You always ask me what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the past. You have to understand that I'm something built on old glory – Gothic revivals and worshippers of Shakespeare even all these centuries later. The Great War shook my empire to the core and yet my people stubbornly cling to it as though it's still at the height of its Victorian splendour, as though nothing has changed – even now, Churchill rails on about defending what's left of the infernal thing against Ludwig and that nutcase boss of his. The unicorn, that old emblem of Medieval greatness, is on my crest and yet you ask me to forsake her and see her only painted there instead."

"Arthur," Alfred says patiently, squeezing his hand, "you can't spend your life looking backwards. Especially not now."

"I know," Arthur groans, "and so, love aside, I said yes to you, Alfred – because you're young and new and you don't live in the past. One day – and _soon_, I wouldn't wager – the future will be yours to fly as your flag. I'm old and silly and weakening by the day, I ought to be glad of your kindness to me, of your patience and your love, and yet my voice fails me to ask for such a simple thing, the one thing you seem to truly want to give me. I haven't the courage to shape my world by you instead."

He smiles weakly at Alfred.

"Aren't _you_ afraid of the future?"

* * *

The sun spirals in through the gap in the curtains, the light all gold now instead of that sultry silver, and Arthur is out of his arms, clambering over him and gone. There is the soft and silken rustle of his pyjamas as he pulls them back on, dressing as he goes, and the frantic pad of his feet on the carpet. He leaves behind a charge somehow electric and bitter, his sudden absence from his own bed noticeable.

Alfred opens his eyes and looks up at the ceiling for a long moment – hearing Arthur on the stairs, scrambling down them like a child on Christmas Morning. In a moment he'll be into the living room and then through to the kitchen and at the back door, clattering at the lock. Alfred knows exactly where he's going.

It'll be interesting, won't it?

He throws back the covers and sits up, fishing for his clothes. It's not that they were carelessly tossed aside in a heady fit of passion, more that Alfred is simply an untidy creature by habit, but he finds his shirt and halfway buttons it over his chest before pulling on his slacks and shimmying his braces over his arms and up to his shoulders without having to unfasten them.

He doesn't bother putting on his glasses. He doesn't think he'll need them.

Arthur has left the back door wide open, the early sunlight streaming through into the kitchen all lacy and mottled from the pattern of ivy overhanging the doorframe. It's a beautiful morning, warm and fresh and clear, with the grass still damp as Alfred steps out barefoot over the path and into it, deep and thick into this old miniature wildness. Some of the late-riser flowers still curl up their petals, nestled deep in the shade of trees no doubt older than Alfred himself, their gnarled wrinkled skin having seen far more of war and peace than he. He steps past them and all their secrets, the sun coming leopard-skin through their leaves and staining his the same, making tarnished-brass of his hair should he stray too far into their shadows.

He squints for Arthur and finds him at the furthest end of the garden, down by the oldest tree – the willow – where the roots are so thick and aged that they have begun to unearth themselves. Those pyjamas might not be real silk, not in times of hardship like these, but they shine like it, deep blue but not-quite-royal, more a humbler sort of forget-me-not or periwinkle or even some pale shade of Persian. Even Alfred, without his glasses, can see the sheen, the way Arthur is by far the brightest thing in his pretty-maids-all-in-a-row garden. Oh, but he'll argue now, won't he; he'll say that all the colour has gone from it, all the beauty and enchantment, Alfred knows he will.

He doesn't seem to understand – or _want_ to, even – that he's the one who put it there in the first place.

With him on his knees, Alfred comes up behind him, footsteps silent on the grass.

"They're gone, Alfred," Arthur says softly. "I can't see them anymore."

"Mm." Alfred kneels down behind him and wraps his arms around his shoulders. "Yeah. Wasn't that what you were expecting?"

"I don't know." Arthur sighs and leans back against him. "I don't know what I was expecting. Perhaps nothing."

"This _is_ nothing, isn't it?"

"I suppose."

Turning his head against Alfred's throat, Arthur smiles – Alfred feels it against his pulse and holds him closer.

"It's funny," Arthur whispers, putting his hand to Alfred's arm, to feel the one tangible thing he has left. "I thought I would cry the way I did back then."

* * *

Arthur is fickle and often cruel in the whims of his moods; he probably won't be speaking this much sense tomorrow (if sense it even is and not instead some kind of riddle or word-trap that Alfred has walked right into). He is gentle enough now, though, and much quieter than Alfred expected him to be, all things considered.

Alfred wonders what kind of expectations Arthur had; if he perhaps imagined being ravished amongst tall sweet grasses and thick beds of flowers all aglow with glass studs of morning dew, with the sky above him those cool marbled colours of late dusk and sprinkled with diamond-stars – and that his unicorns and fairies would fade out of his view there and then as he grew sullied and impure, perhaps vanishing over the shuddering shoulder of his seducer.

(And if _that's_ farfetched) Arthur ruled the world once. He could have had it more spectacular than this if he'd wanted. Silk sheets, four-posters, pillows embroidered with real gold; slick in the mud of the battlefield, maybe, or perhaps at sea, with the rock and toss of danger and death-by-drowning to help sway him with that first entangle. Perhaps, even, in some exotic nation's home instead, some place he'd taken and all its finery with it. He could have had anyone he wanted, no doubt, someone willing or not-so-willing, perhaps someone wanting to squirm into his favour or an equal or even someone he didn't like all that much, with the ill-feeling reciprocated. Any of those things, or indeed any blend, would have been a perfect trophy of the past, the writhing underbelly of all those ugly old centuries to which he owed his crown.

And yet here is that crown exchanged for _this_.

Perhaps that milky moon-glow should be romantic but instead it's restricting. Alfred can see barely anything of him, just the silvery glint of his hair now and then, and instead can only hear him, only feel him. So different, then, to watching him at the window, having nothing of him but that view of his back and his half-open hands – for he breathes instead at Alfred's throat, panting open and sharp, even _bright_ like the wrinkled wings of a new butterfly, and his voice wells but always catches, safe, secure, as though he's bottling those original cries for later. Alfred really did expect him to be louder than this but he bites it all back but for Alfred's name, which imbeds alongside his nails and his teeth over and over on his first lover's skin.

Alfred pauses to unhook him again, whispering in his ear that it hurts, don't dig in like that, I'm not gonna let go of you, I promise; not that it matters with Arthur underneath on his back with nowhere to fall. The bed has never been used like this and creaks loudly and Arthur gives a breathless laugh and says they'll traumatise the poor thing, something about having to be gentle with old bones like this and Alfred presses deeper, deeper still with a snap of his hips, and Arthur arches beneath him. The sheets are all bunched around them, a tangled nest of old worn cotton, and with his hands fisted around handfuls of it as though it were worth its weight in gold, Arthur lets out a sigh that goes up at the end like music, not unfamiliar, and his bare legs go tighter still around Alfred's trembling waist. His thighs slide against Alfred's hips for want of friction denied by sweat and their contact prickles. Alfred's forehead burns, his damp hair swathed against it, and he presses it to Arthur's and they breathe together for a long moment before kissing.

When Alfred pulls back, he runs his tongue over his bottom lip and asks why. why now. why tonight. _Why_, Arthur?

"Because I'm at home," Arthur says at his ear, his voice tiny and precious, "and I'm awake."

* * *

"Oh, but this is how it always is," Arthur sighs; the jar lies open and empty in his lap. "Time is so unforgiving and things have no choice but to crumble away. Everything that I treasure slips between my fingers sooner or later."

Alfred leans in towards him, nuzzles his neck, sighs into his hair.

"Except," Arthur goes on quietly, finding Alfred's hand, "those few treasures which come back to me."

* * *

Gahhhh, how nauseatingly romantic, excuse me while I go throw up. XD

The scene on the bank of the Mississippi River with the twilight and the riverboat (the _Delta Queen_ is a real riverboat, btw, from the 1920s!) and the fireflies was somewhat-inspired by **Hakuku**'s beautiful piece of artwork: **http: /hakuku. ****deviantart. com**/gallery /10517894? offset=24#/ d2y490q (sorry, spaces are required, as usual!).

There's actually some damn sinister stuff in fairy folklore, not that this went _too_ much into it, but one scholar even said that a good fairy is actually just a fairy in a good mood and a bad fairy is a fairy wronged or offended (and if that's the case, then you want to stay the hell out of their way). Incidentally, one of the creepiest but by far the best books (alongside T. H. White's original _The Sword in the Stone_) I read for the Fantasy and Fandom module was _Lud-in-the-Mist_ by Hope Mirlees. A-maz-ing. o.O You've probably never even heard of it but I would _highly_ recommend it (and I don't recommend books often because I'm super fucking picky).

Well, I think that's all! Is anyone going to London Expo this weekend (27th-29th May 2011)? =)

RobinRocks

xXx

P.S: Wow. I think this is the very first pre-WWII _Hetalia_ fic I have written which is USUK instead of UKUS. o.O


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